One thing I have noted when I have bad migraines is that not only do I crave certain foods, I also crave certain textures. Cookie dough is one of them, which of course wreaks havoc on dieting efforts. That’s where these come in, their texture is very similar to cookie dough and they have a great flavor while containing healthy ingredients like oatmeal and flax seeds. The sweetness comes from honey, peanut butter, coconut, vanilla, and chocolate chips (which are optional but I always like the little bit of chocolate they give). They are a great afternoon pick-me-up. I like to make a large batch of these (triple or quadruple the recipe) and then freeze the extras in an airtight container for a readily available snack to take to work.

Variations on this recipe include adding mashed bananas, cinnamon, more peanut butter if you want them to be more gooey, or heath toffee bits for a sweeter, crunchier texture (although that admittedly sort of defeats the whole healthy thing…), here’s my tweaked base recipe with the original listed on the website above. This makes about 20-25 one-inch energy bites:

1 cup oats

2/3 cup coconut flakes (you can toast or use untoasted – I usually do untoasted just because I throw all of this together in hurry)

1/2 cup peanut butter (or whatever nut butter you prefer)

1/2 cup flax seed (I use them whole although the recipe says to ground them)

Mix all above ingredients together and let chill for about 1 hour, then roll into bite-sized treats! These stay in the fridge for about 1 week (but I doubt they will last that long…) and can stay for a couple of months in the freezer, just pull a few out as needed.

**UPDATE: Cranberry-White Chocolate Energy Bites! OK, so in attempt to switch things up a bit, I did some substituting:

Add 1/2 cup cranberries and 1/4 cup white chocolate chips in place of the 1/2 cup of chocolate chips before, throw 1-2 tsp of orange zest in and mix…delish!

You can also do a combo of dark chocolate chips and cranberries.

You can also substitute 1/2 cup white chocolate chips instead of milk chocolate chips in the original recipe and add 1 tsp (more if you really like lime) of lime zest for coconut-lime white chocolate energy bites